“Arsène who?”
That’s what the Evening Standard declared when we unveiled Arsène Wenger as our manager in September 1996.
Many of our first-team squad also shared that view at first, but those doubts were soon put to rest when they began working with the Frenchman.
"I do remember it was kind of a shock they had to let Bruce go," Dennis Bergkamp told our In Lockdown podcast. "We'd not had the best of seasons in 1995/96 but I think it was good enough to progress to the next season with a lot of confidence, but it wasn't meant to be.
"There was a certain period between the moment he was let go until Arsene came - I think it was a few months - which was an insecure time for me because I was remembering the lies from Italy again. I was thinking, 'OK, wait a minute, what's going to happen now?'
"There were some doubts in my mind but they were soon taken away when Arsene came in because he was the one who had a philosophy that suited my philosophy, it was the same. His philosophy suited my game and therefore there were no doubts once he took over.
"There was a good understanding and from day one we knew what we expected from each other and that's why it worked."
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